


A Tale of Two Seers

by graveExcitement (arachnids)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F, Post-Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-30
Updated: 2012-12-30
Packaged: 2017-11-22 23:02:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/615336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arachnids/pseuds/graveExcitement
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Apocalyptic circumstances! The Alternian Empire brought a host of diseases with them when they tried to conquer the planet Earth, and managed to make it uninhabitable for the vast majority of humans and trolls alike. Rose Lalonde lies in the minuscule minority, which depending on one's point of view, is either very lucky or very unfortunate indeed...</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Tale of Two Seers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bladeCleaner](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bladeCleaner/gifts).



(years in the past; a pair of disks lay untouched and gather dust, but their potential is not unspent.

 

hours in the future, the ground at their feet reeks of death and decay.

 

in the present: ==>)

 

The air is filled with that ringing one's brain sometimes invents to fill the silence. It is a sound Rose associates with the quiet of her bedroom at early hours in the morning, reading by flashlight in the dead silence of deep night - though such a silence is incomparable to the one she faces now. The only sounds that penetrated the ringing silence at the time were the flipping of pages. The silence she cannot escape presently is similar in its completeness; her brain attempts to fill it, but this pseudo-silence is far more unnatural. Far more absolute.

It may be nearly midnight, but Rose knows for a fact that this city, not too long ago, would have been far from quiet at this time of night. It is as she feared, then: this city is silent as the grave, a cemetery to a multitude of unfortunates.

Unfortunate, that the arrival of the Alternian Empire was easily and eerily comparable to the arrival of the Spaniards in the New World, insofar as both invading peoples slaughtered the natives and brought a host of epidemic diseases. Such would be an interesting topic for an essay, Rose thinks; the only differences are 1) that it is not a new continent being invaded, but rather a new planet - new for the Alternians, anyways - 2) in this case, the invading people is another species.

It should have been quite unlikely that troll and human biology were similar enough for diseases to be transmittable between the two species; however, as it turned out, that was precisely the case. Inexplicable, yes, but there was nothing to be done about it.  
  
Although now that she thinks about it, there is another difference between the two different discoveries of "new" worlds - when Columbus and his ilk discovered the Americas, the Native Americans had few infectious diseases to give the Europeans, whereas when the trolls - an interesting choice of word, Rose thinks, seeing as they hardly resemble trolls of Earth mythology - landed on Earth and began their slaughter, there were plentiful human diseases to do what human weapons rarely could.  
  
One could even consider this a triumph, that the human race had managed to do what few other species have been able to do, across many thousands of sweeps: defend their world in such a manner that trolls would likely never willingly set foot on Earth again. It was an impressive feat.

Unfortunate that the vast majority (how vast was still unknown) of the human race had to die to accomplish this -  thus, one could posit that the Alternian Empire won after all, since their desire was conquest and subjugation, rather than colonization.

And the uncountable multitudes of corpses strewn about the planet were unfortunate in another, rather significant way: they were not Rose Lalonde, and had not been granted the unfathomably improbable genetics that currently ensured she still breathed.

Unfathomably improbable - at this point, Rose thinks, it is probably not feasible to expect probability to behave in a reasonable manner. Perhaps she should step back, observe her situation from another point of view.

The Alternians had brought a host of diseases with them, many quite deadly - or at least deadly to humans. What was more, if the conversations she had overheard between various, panicked scientists - including her mother - were accurate, some human diseases had combined with troll ones to produce some seriously infectious and deadly hybrids. No one, to her knowledge, had escaped the vicious epidemics that had swept the planet. No human, no troll - no one, that is, but herself.  
  
That she knew of, anyways. It was possible for others to have survived - her own survival did make the survival of others seem more likely - but the silence permeating this great city was... disheartening, to say the least. But if others had survived - individuals, perhaps, or very small groups - she would have no way of knowing or communicating with them, unless she happened to stumble across them. Very unlikely  - but 'very unlikely' seems to describe rather accurately Rose's life and continual existence post-Extinction.  
  
For while Rose had lived in a rather large house, conveniently isolated from civilization - what should have been the perfect scenario for escaping death by apocalypse - her mother just so happened to work at SkaiaNet, otherwise known as the #1 lab in the world for the study of trolls and anything Alternian. (It had been a rather recent, and hasty, specialization.) As a result, Rose had been exposed to a veritable cocktail of Alternian diseases. Logically, she and some of the scientists ought to have been the first to go.  
  
But evidently, the world she now lives in does not follow logic. Does it follow some other laws, then? Rose ponders this. Magic of some sort, perhaps? Magic being the answer is improbable at best, of course; the question is, would that be a more or less improbable reason for her survival, when compared with inexplicable genetic perfection?  
  
By all logic, she and some of the scientists ought to have been the first to go. The scientists, yes - or some of them, anyways. The rest went later, or so Rose assumes. Herself, no. And when said scientists discovered this fact, she was flown out to to another lab, out on the East Coast.  
  
"You know you don't have to do this, right?" Rose's mother had said. Rose had considered this as she examined her mother reclining on the couch, martini in hand.  
  
"Indeed. I do not have to," Rose had replied. "Precisely in the manner that you do not have to pay taxes."  
  
"Glad you understand, Rose darling," her mother slurred. "You know I don't like it. I would have never chosen this for you, but..." Rose's absconding had gone unnoticed.  
  
So various labcoats poked and prodded at her, becoming more frantic every day. Desperate to discover her secret. But it was too little, too late - by the time a mere two weeks were out, there was no one left to poke and prod her anymore.  
  
And it was not long afterwards that everyone else was gone, too.  
  
The streets are deserted. Rose gazes up at the ashen sky - though that is simply indicative of the Northeast's gloomy weather, rather than the sorry state of human civilization.  
  
Before her tower great skyscrapers, a testament to the advancements of a species now exterminated. Taxis litter the narrow streets, and even encroach upon the sidewalk. Rose steps carefully around the site of a wreck, careful not to look inside what remains of the car.  
  
It is surely a travesty, she thinks, that only now, when the place is in such disarray, does she get to visit New York City.  
  
Strictly speaking, her presence here has no real point, or at least no especially important one. Nothing here, she is sure, will aid her in reaching her goal, and her goal is her purpose in life right now. Everything else is pointless, though one could posit that everything is, if you are the last known human being on Earth.  
  
But there are a few reasons for being here, nonetheless. Rose doesn't know whether to call it intuition, lunacy, or both, but she could swear - against all known laws of science and logic - that she had seen many paths before her, and that walking this one would lead to some very auspicious circumstances.  
  
Known laws of science and logic... Hm. Considering her situation, perhaps Rose should discard such ideas entirely. Skepticism has its time and place, but now, she thinks, is not the time or place.  
  
What is arguably a better reason than that, however, is that Rose _has_ seen a decent amount of movies; more importantly, she knows the traits and tropes of stories and storytellers everywhere. Her tale screams post-apocalyptic. She is situated extremely close to New York City. The laws of drama dictate that she happen across the Statue of Liberty.  
  
Not that she intends to obey the laws of drama at every turn. And she considers that this particular law would have no place in her story unless she purposefully caused it to, as she is doing now. But it is possible that circumstance would have fulfilled this law anyways. Better to take responsibility for it, when it does not make too much of a difference. There are other battles against the laws of narrative probability to be fought later - and in no way does Rose Lalonde intend to allow many of the _other_ post-apocalyptic traits to invade her personal narrative.  
  
It could be arrogance, considering her life to be like a movie. But to be fair, she is the last, or one of the last, humans on this Earth. It only seems appropriate.  
  
A creaking noise sounds from behind her. Rose stills. She is almost inclined to pass it off as some structure on the verge of collapse. But such would be extreme folly, she is sure - and the realization hits her that no matter how determined she is to not follow most of the standard convictions of post-apocalyptic stories, that determination will always be eclipsed by her desire to not land herself in the middle of a horror story.  
  
She whirls around. The streets are as empty as they were before. Rose almost begins to wonder whether one can be _too_ genre savvy, when a door on the left side of the street breaks open. From inside the derelict building - even by apocalyptic standards, it seems especially abandoned - spills out a mob of undead.  
  
Rose examines the size of the mob before her, and is thankful that they are the standard slow, shambling zombies. They should be _relatively_ easy to evade.  
  
No point in letting them catch up to her, though, so she turns and jogs away. This is a spot of moderately bad luck; for one thing, she has no weapon, and for another, she was never much for running.  
  
Rose scowls. She should really have seen it coming - most to all of humanity exterminated by disease? _Of course_ this was a zombie apocalypse! It's all clear now, which is to be expected, as - to use a common idiom - hindsight is 20/20.  
  
As Rose runs, she shifts around priorities in her head. The new number one priority is getting hold of a weapon, and testing its efficiency on slaughtering zombies. The only problem with such an idea is that she does not know where to acquire weaponry; she could go through one of the many abandoned buildings nearby, but that would mean taking her chances that she wouldn't open the door for a bunch of zombies. And she can't run forever.  
  
After taking a moment to observe the empty road in front of her, Rose closes her eyes. Her feet continue to pound down the street, but her mind is elsewhere. What she sees displayed on the back of her eyelids is a vague, glittering tree of cascading probabilities. Nothing has changed, then - her destination remains the same, though how this will be to her benefit, she cannot quite imagine...  
  
Her foot meets something unknown where there should have been only air, and Rose topples forward, opening her eyes in time to see the ground rushing up at her face.  
  
The collision is painful in multiple places, and Rose considers an idea: there is no good luck or bad luck. There are only probabilities, and how successful you are in modifying them to your advantage.  
  
Something clutches at her ankle. Rose feels like she has just jumped out of her skin (not literally, of course) - panicking more than a little, she kicks out at the creature currently holding her foot hostage. It is not terribly difficult to escape the zombie's clutches, especially considering it only consists of the top half, but when she shakily rises to her feet, terror sets in.  
  
The sun is getting close to setting, and as she looks up at the towering buildings, the street seems far too dark. Her delay has allowed the horde behind her to significantly advance, and zombies lurch from either side, as well. Shakily, she stumbles forward in an approximation of a run, but she can't help looking back to see the zombies growing near.  
  
She may be immune to whichever of the many diseases that swept the planet turned these people into zombies, but that doesn't mean she's immune to death. She swallows, trying not to let fear overcome her - at least more than it already has. She picks up speed, staring straight ahead, glad of only one thing: that she is wearing reasonable running shoes...  
  
She turns left onto another, narrower street - though she was not so foolish as to enter an alleyway - in the hopes that at least some of the braindead creatures would be confused.  She quickly has to skid to a stop, however, because right in front of her is unmistakably a troll.  
  
The troll has at least a foot and a half on her, with huge looping horns; it lurches towards her, and she sprints past it. It, like many things in this city, stinks of rotting flesh; evidently, trolls can be zombies too.  
  
She almost wishes that the scientists had let her keep her strifekind abstratus, but even if they had, needlekind would be a rather uncomfortable close-range weapon in any situation where she would be battling zombies.  
  
She runs for a block or two before seeing several more zombies and darting to the right. 'You can't run forever,' her mind unhelpfully reminds her. "I can sure try," she mutters, racing past a door which several zombies are pounding on from the other side.  
  
She skids to a stop in front of a brick wall and curses. She turns around, and inevitably, a fair few zombies stand at the entrance to the unfortunately-chosen alleyway. The door on the right busts open, and zombies lurch out from there as well. Back to the wall, Rose grimaces and waits for the shambling monsters to reach her. Such an ignoble end - certainly not fitting of any good movie...  
  
To her great surprise, a figure drops down from the wall in front of her, and she sees a very bloodied sword slice through the air. The closest three zombies are all beheaded in one swift stroke; another receives a sword in the face.  
  
"You looked like you could use a hand!" her - in all truth - rescuer says casually. Rose eyes the pair of pointed orange horns and notes another improbability; there is no reason trolls should speak English. Perhaps this one was explicable, however; they could have some sort of translator...  
  
"Indeed," Rose replies dryly. "I do believe the sword was more helpful, however."  
  
"Good thing I brought both!" says the troll as she clears the path in front of them. It is a she, judging by the voice, though Rose is prepared to modify her analysis if she is wrong.  
  
"Both a sword and a hand, or both swords?" Rose asks, watching the (satisfying) carnage from a safe distance. "Your wording was ambiguous."  
  
"I believe my answer would have to be... yes!" The troll has, at least temporarily, cleared the alley of zombies, and she turns and saunters back to Rose, stepping over corpses when necessary.  
  
The most immediately noticeable things about the troll are her scarlet red pointed glasses and her even more pointed grin. Everything about her could be described as pointed, actually; she is all angles, from her horns to her swords.  
  
"So," says Rose. "We're both alive, which as I have recently determined, is a rather improbable occurrence on this planet."  
  
"Indeed it is!" The troll's grin seems to widen even more, if that were possible. "Your point being?"  
  
"I believe," Rose says carefully, "that we would be both benefited if we were to, say, ally, against the vast league of corpses." She holds out her hand.  
  
"My information would indicate the same thing," says the troll. Instead of taking Rose's hand, she flips around one of her swords so that she holds it by the blade, and offers it to Rose. "The name's Terezi."  
  
"Rose," she replies demurely, and takes the sword, hefts it. Swordkind is not her specialty, but she rather expects it will have to be soon.  
  
After all, there is still an unfathomable amount of animated corpses between her and her destination.  
  
Some hours later, when both of their swords are drenched in blood, Rose and Terezi stand before the greatest monument to freedom America has seen. Or what was once America, anyways. Should she still bother to call it America?  
  
Rose has to explain the significance of the statue before them to Terezi, but that's alright; in the course of their battles against the undead, both of them have had to explain several important tenets of their respective cultures. Terezi, for her part, is pleased at the tasty almost-teal of the statue.  
  
"On Alternia, any monuments to freedom would not have lasted long," Terezi explains. She wrinkles her nose and adds, "Freedom was not exactly a very valued idea, you understand."  
  
"Such was the same in several Earth countries," Rose replies, gazing up at the Statue of Liberty. "But America wasn't one of them." The human race may have fallen, but it still stands tall and proud. How long will that last? she wonders.  
  
"That's why I left!" Terezi continues. "I could have chosen another ship, another mission - but my eyes told me this one would lead to freedom."  
  
"But at what cost?" Rose asks, turning her head to examine her partner in undead-slaying. "For example, one could posit that I am more free, now that the human race as a whole is extinct."  
  
Terezi does not answer for a minute; the enthusiasm falls from her face. "I gave up my chance to pursue justice," she answers finally, then turns to face Rose. "But," she adds slowly, "it was Alternian justice. And I finally realized that wasn't the kind of justice I wanted to pursue."  
  
"And how would you describe Alternian justice?" The irony strikes her, that for at least this brief moment, Rose is once more taking on the role of therapist, for the last other sentient living being on Earth (that they know of.)  
  
"Cruel. Corrupt. Unyielding." Terezi stares with scorched eyes, not blinking. "Perhaps one of those I could have handled. Accepted, even. But..." She shrugs, looks at her feet.  
  
"Well," Rose says in all seriousness, "you don't have to worry about me judging you for such a thing."  
  
Terezi slowly grins. "I suppose not," she says, "seeing as you're the one with a massive statue dedicated to liberty!"  
  
"Exactly," Rose replies, with a smile of her own.

Following a strange impulse, Rose offers her hand once more. Terezi takes it, and they quietly stand before the great Statue of Liberty. The water ripples out calmly, and the only noises are the calls of birds - for a while, at least, before the groans of nearby zombies prompt the pair to take up their swords.

-  
  
Days stretch into weeks; the pair journey across the country, reveling in the squelches of zombies' heads being separated from their necks.  
  
They make camp in the basement of an old apartment building in Ohio. Terezi drags a cabinet to rest in front of the door, ensuring they will at least have some warning before any zombies are able to enter.  
  
Rose curses under her breath and would kick the offending object were her toes not bruised from acting upon a similar impulse a few nights ago. "It sure would be nice if one of these furnaces we come across were to _work_ ," she mutters.  
  
"Sorry," Terezi calls out cheerfully, "I was never one for being anything past semi-competent in tech-related things. I had other things to do!"  
  
"So did I," Rose replies, shaking her head. "So did I."  
  
She finally turns away from the furnace and to the open expanse of cold floor. With a sigh, she retrieves a blown-up air mattress from her sylladex; considering that she does not have the required supplies to blow it up again, she is careful not to accidentally open the valve at one end.  
  
Terezi observes her. "I still maintain that your human habit of sleeping on flat, soft surfaces is strange."  
  
"Considering that your species' two sleeping habits are a) in a vat of goop and b) on a pile of uncomfortable items, I'm not surprised," Rose replies dryly.  
  
"I mean, it's tolerable, don't get me wrong!" Terezi adds. "I'm not about to clog up either of our sylladexes with the stuff necessary for a good pile, but that doesn't make it not weird."  
  
"I wonder," muses Rose, "is the plural of 'sylladex' 'sylladexes', like you said, or would it be 'sylladice'?"  
  
"Semantics," Terezi says with a wave of her hand. As Rose pulls out several blankets from her sylladex, Terezi adds, "Also strange: your requiring a great many things to keep you warm."  
  
"We have different body temperatures," Rose reminds her. "You could compare me physiologically to one of your 'lowbloods', if I recall correctly." She hesitates for a minute, then arranges the blankets so that they look vaguely neat, before slipping underneath them and sighing at the added warmth.  
  
"Right, right," Terezi says, before joining Rose under the covers. Rose is more than a little annoyed at the bout of inexplicable nervousness she has, and tries to shove said nervousness away. It doesn't really work, and she hesitates more than she would like before reaching for Terezi.  
  
Terezi pulls Rose towards her, and Rose snuggles into the crook of Terezi's neck, draping an arm over her side. As with every time they do this, Rose catches herself thinking that they fit together like pieces of a puzzle, which always strikes her as an absurd, irritating, cliche. Terezi is a good deal cooler than she is, but the comfort of another living being makes up for the chill. And they're wrapped in blankets, anyways.  
  
"I have a question," Terezi says, pressing closer to Rose.  
  
"Go ahead," murmurs Rose, already a little sleepy.  
  
Terezi pauses, then does as Rose says. "To be blunt: what is our destination? For a while I mistakenly assumed we had none, but then -"  
  
Rose cuts her off, drawn out of her sleepiness. "My mother's house."  
  
Terezi asks, "What's a mother?"  
  
There is silence, then Rose says, "That's about the saddest thing I ever heard get said."  
  
"That claim seems improbable to me," says Terezi.  
  
Rose hums. "I've quickly come to realize that improbability is, in fact, quite flexible."  
  
The conversation fades into silence, but it's a comfortable one, and Rose clings to Terezi as they drift into sleep. Their swords lie in reach, but tonight, at least, they will rest undisturbed.  
  
Which is fortunate, because they have a great deal of zombie slaying to do tomorrow...

**Author's Note:**

> This was for the prompt "Aaaaaaapocalyptic CIRCUMSTANCES!!!! Dramatic introduction aside, I'd like Rose and Terezi to be in a ravaged, dull, grey, destroyed world. Whether it's a zombie apocalypse or a watery grave-world, or even a virus that ended the world, I'd like it to be the two of them against the world, armed to the teeth with either rifles, swords or magic weapons. Big Damn Kiss optional, but no sex, please. Just these two being complete badasses in a ruined world together with some redrom shipping moments thrown in."
> 
> I wanted to put in some more romantic moments between them, but I didn't exactly want to shoehorn them in. So here it is; this probably ended up more gen than anything else, but oh well. Hopefully this was satisfactory!


End file.
